Friday, January 18, 2013

Domestic threats

An organization connected to the West Point Military Academy released a new study showing extreme far-right groups in the United States "while diverse in their causes, are similar in their use of violence" to "draw attention to and emphasize their given ideology."

Unsurprisingly the crackpot conservative contingent on Capitol Hill, as with a previous study done in 2009, is taking it personally.

A Republican congressional staffer who served in the military told The Washington Times: “If [the Defense Department] is looking for places to cut spending, this junk study is ground zero.

“Shouldn’t the Combating Terrorism Center be combating radical Islam around the globe instead of perpetuating the left’s myth that right-wingers are terrorists?” the staffer said. “The $64,000 dollar question is when will the Combating Terrorism Center publish their study on real left-wing terrorists like the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, and the Weather Underground?”

Of course, this organization does generally focus on foreign terrorism threats but in the world according to far right conservatives, even acknowledging that domestic threats exist is apparently a serious affront to God, country and their self-identity.

And never mind that ALF and ELF are mere vandals who only destroy property, (which shouldn't be condoned either), but they don't threaten harm to humans to further their cause. Indeed they make a point to avoid it. Further I can barely recall the last time either of these groups commited a major act of vandalism beyond a vague recollection of ELF blowing up some big piece of construction equipment many years ago. As for the Weathermen, they dissolved about 30 years ago. Which proves that in the fevered imaginations of crackpot conservatives, old lefty villians never die.

In any event, as a proud liberal, I have no problem with violent left-wing extremists being identified and called out for endangering the public safety. If right wing conservatives feel threatened by the extremists on their side being held to the same scrutiny, I'd suggest they either rethink their loyalties or seek professional help in dealing with their own paranoid fantasies of imagined persecution.